Pages

The passing of Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan-yew sparked on China’s social media a round of criticism of the “Singapore Model”. Few took notice that the country had long denied the existence of such a model and made its latest denial in February this year. Singapore Roving Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan said in his speech delivered at the Brookings Institution that there was no such thing as a “Singapore model”, Lee and his team improvised many of the country’s policies and that the late leader’s pragmatic governance belief is ingrained in the regime.

By He Qinglian on February 14, 2015
Source article in Chinese: 中国经济逼近悬崖

China’s money supply had a net increase of 11 percent from 2013 to
2014, an increase that is significantly higher than the country’s
economic growth. In 2014 it reached 122.84 trillion yuan (US$18.05
trillion), compared with 110.7 trillion (US$17.71 trillion) by the end
of 2013. Of China’s 12.14 trillion added currency (US$1.94 trillion) in
2014, 9.78 trillion yuan (US$1.56 trillion), over 80 percent, was used
for creating new loans. Not only was it 890 billion (US$142 billion)
higher than that in 2013, but also broke the 2009 record of 9.59
trillion (US$1.53 trillion) by 190 billion (US$30 billion) more.
So much new money was printed. Where did it all go? The majority of
the loans did not flow into the economy, but went into non-production
areas, namely the financial market.